The Guest House and Garudasana
Today, I opened the blog and realised I had last written here in Jan 2018. That's 8 months back. The year has only four more months to go and I have only written about yoga once. How is that possible i ask myself. Especially in what has most probably been the most rocky phase or rather uncertain phase of my life! My practice is lovely, and that has kept me sane, in fact the one time I stopped it because I got too busy with life and work - I fell terribly sick. Lesson learned I guess.
This post is something I'm re-working - it was sitting in the drafts of my blog and I read the title and realised how lovely it was and wondered why i hadn't ever completed the writing. The Guest House is a gorgeous little poem by Rumi. Jellaluddin Rumi is a a Persian poet who has comforted many an aching heart and inspired many a wandering soul. In fact even if you don't fit those categories, and you picked up a book of his poems, you'll find some treasure lurking somewhere waiting to dazzle you with it's brilliance. The Guest House is one such treasure. I've read it so many times it's become a part of me now and feels so familiar, I had to do a check again to see if I've already mentioned it in my posts, but didn't find any history of it. Maybe I had introduced a class with it once and hence i remember either writing or reading it so distinctively.
This human being is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all,
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep you house
empty of its furniture
still, treat each guest honourably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight,.
the dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in
Be grateful for whatever comes
because each has been sent by a guide beyond.
Isn't it wonderful? A lovely way to speak about equanimity in life. And seems like it is something you can do without too much thought or as second nature, but to truly remember these words when you are under the spell of darkness, sorrow, depression, shame and malice, is a mean task. To extract yourself from those emotions and to remember to welcome them in and not fight them is not something that comes easily to most of us, including me. In spite of trusting the process and following the path and remembering to experience each emotion and let each script play out, when you are without light, your first reaction is blindness, until your body adjusts and your eyes react to having no light and align themselves to find a way anyway.
I have no idea why chose to club the guest house with garudasana. But I have many things to say about garudasana anyway. I attended a few classes at The Practice in Canggu, Bali and the teacher was besotted with Garudasana and so in all the classes I attended of his, garudasana was built in - with long holds. I still remember learning how to do this asana in the early days. I couldn't get the balance right, one side would invariably be better than the other, my torso would be leaning too far forward and my butt sticking out in the back too much. I remember scoffing when the teacher said 'tuck your toes behind your calves', and I thought to myself - you've got to be kidding me dude, im already in this precarious balance and you want me to secure another bind over the one I'm already in? Not happening. Nopes. But it did happen, when i learnt the grace and the stability associated with the Garuda, I realised how beautiful the asana was - and how strong as well. I also realised how in assuming the position of the Garuda, I was a creature that was capable of soaring up high above, but also land back down on ground be as majestic as in flight.
I've spoken about the asana before - in a post I did for the 30 days of hot yoga challenge. Seems like a lifetime ago. I've changed jobs, I've changed teachers and studios, I have changed countries in a way and I've also changed the way I practice since then. I no longer seek out "only hot yoga" classes on the schedule and have learnt to embrace a changing body but also a stabler aspect of yoga. So while, i seem to have then too understood garudasana and the aspects that make the pose, I obviously relate to it a lot more now. I did write about Garud being Vishnu's "seat" or vahana, garud being an eagle-like bird that has a very focused gaze. Now, Vishnu, the sustainer of this world of human and other beings also has another seat deep inside the ocean - a snake, also called "sarpa" in Sanskrit. An author that I really like and deeply respect, Devdutt Pattanaik, is also a great reader and author of Hindu Mythology. He has an impeccable understanding of gods and goddesses and why certain episodes played out, what their underlying hidden meanings are, why certain beings acted the way they did and what can we learn from them. He also occasionally writes for the Economic Times, where he derives meanings from these mythologies for the corporate world and how to be a better manager and how to survive in this stress-ridden corporate world so many of us inhabit without burning out. In one such article he had written about Vishnu and his two vehicles - the garud and the sarpa. Often, the vahanas of these celestial beings are meant to serve a purpose, that then enables the said deities to fulfil their function in the world. So is the case with Vishnu's vahanas. They endow with two qualities that he needs to serve as the protector and enabler of this Universe, of the earthly world and beyond - these qualities play out as "drishties". Drishti is a focused gaze and is a very important concept even in yoga - where your eyes go, so your mind will too and your body will follow - is often a phrase a lot of my teachers have used while admonishing me when they can see I'm obviously getting distracted and my eyes are straying from my practice. Focusing your gaze on a particular point in front of you, at the tip of your nose, or the tips of your fingers or your navel - have specific meanings and uses, but the foremost use being to capture your attention and still your mind and hence still your body.
Devdutta Pattanaik says, Vishnu's garud gives him the garud-drishti, an all-seeing, all-knowing gaze that enables him to run the world. It gives him a macro, long term view of things and situations and helps him consider the broader picture before acting or meting out justice. The Sarpa, gifts him the sarpa-drishti - a narrower, and more immediate view of things, one that he needs to solve particular problems. With garuda-drishti, he knows that the world exists today, but will for sure, exhaust tomorrow and this is the just and fair cycle of life and death - a wheel that he is entrusted with turning. With his sarpa-drishti, he focuses his attention on the more everyday (which in celestial terms is a couple hundred years anyway) issues and this is when he uses his avatars (incarnations) of Ram and Krishna to solve problems and balance the scales of good and bad.Without either one of these drishties, he will fail in his role as the protector of this world of beings.
This is such a beautiful perspective of the Garud and also extends to a deeper understanding garudasana and the drishti one needs to stay balanced and stable in the asana. The garud or eagle is very respected in India, but also in Indonesia and more specifically, in the hindu island of Bali - after all the aptly names Garuda is the national airlines. Indonesia, very delicately and very unconsciously maintains a gorgeous balance of being an muslim-majority nation with a very Sanskrit view of life that permeates the culture in everything from names to symbolisms to even rituals. In today's India where the Hindu-right dictates what it means to be a Hindu, I often am afraid to call myself one, in fear of being included in the same bracket as these other intolerant and narrow-minded right-wingers. Indonesia on the other hand, has managed to achieve the true meaning of secularism so nonchalantly, where one culture merges the other to form one identity, where two different religion merge to form one nation so effortlessly. May God bless that island country and it's people and may they realise the magic of what they have achieved.
In dedication to the garud, I share this tiny flow that I often find myself breaking into when I feel the need to soar and the need to feel grounded at the same time, one that starts and ends in garudasana.
garudasana [with right leg over the left and right arm under the left]
- optional variation : round your back, bend forwards and have your elbows touch your knees, stay for a few breaths before coming back up.
flying garudasana : unravel your legs and fly the right leg behind, keeping the arms bound and stretching out to the front, body moving both ways backwards with the flying leg and forwards with the fingers, gazing at the tips of your fingers.
anjaneyasana (lunge) with garudasana arms : drop the right foot down, and lift your back heel, bend the front left knee at the ninety degree angle, and keep your arms bound and fingers reaching upwards
- optional variation: pull the chest forward and up and go into a gentle backbend without stress on the lower back, fingers can now point backwards.
utkata konasana (goddess pose) with garudasana: straighten out both legs and turn your toes to the right (when the right leg is leading), bend your knees to have both of them point in opposite directions, but in line with the respective toes, lift your elbows in line with your face. Stay for a few breaths before straightening your knees out , pointing the left toes to the front and lifting the right heel off the mat back into anjaneyasana stance.
From here, trace your steps backwards, all the way to Tadasana.
This is a sequence I often sneak into my personal practice - it fills me with poise and grace and invigorates my senses and gets me ready for the upcoming day.
I had said that I started the post on a whim, following just the title - not knowing why i had decided to write on the two concepts in the first place. But looks like combining Rumi's Guest House and Vishnu's Garud has inadvertently led me to a lesson in always keeping a broad mind, not succumbing to the troubles that befall you, but knowing that there is an end to all sorrows and often in everything and everyone there hides a gift. Keeping an open mind to all that you are experiencing and inviting every situation as a teacher will lead us closer to our True Selves, a self that is full of peace and happiness - an eternal state that all humans and beings move slowly towards anyway.
I'll end with this quote from Carl Sandberg :
There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud.
May we all recognize the need to do both and honour that inner guide that leads us to our truest selves.
Namaste
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